Ridder, last season's AAC offensive player of the year, passed for 2,296 yards and 19 touchdowns while rushing for 592 yards and 12 scores. Ridder's 22 career rushing touchdowns are the most by a quarterback in program history.
Sanders earned a first-team All-AAC selection en route to racking up 31 total tackles and leading the team in tackles for loss (10.5) and sacks (seven). The 6-foot-5, 258-pound Jacksonville, Florida, native will anchor a defense that will have a coordinator other than Marcus Freeman for the first time in Fickell's tenure at Cincinnati.
Fickell brought in longtime Michigan State assistant coach and former Bearcats assistant Mike Tressel to replace Freeman, who left the program in January to take the same job at Notre Dame.
Cincinnati plays in South Bend on Oct. 2.
More: New UC defensive coordinator Mike Tressel 'fired up' to be back 'home' with Bearcats
Fickell and Tressel will roam the same sideline for the first time since they were together at Ohio State beginning in 2002, when the Buckeyes won the national championship, and until Tressel joined then-Ohio State defensive coordinator Mark Dantonio at Cincinnati. Dantonio was hired as UC's head coach in December 2003.
"The familiarity, personally, really helps," Fickell said on adding Tressel to his staff. "He's had to build some relationships with some guys in our defensive room that he didn't know, but I think the relationship, the familiarity from that point of things for me has allowed me to stay out of the way and let him do and build some things within that defensive room with those guys because they're really, really good, really sharp and smart and got good ideas."
Fickell said he's already begun to pick Tressel's brain to figure out some enhancements and adjustments that will make a defense that has already been one of the most dominant in the country even more stifling.
"Right now, it's about getting better," Fickell said. "I think in general, right now, our idea is how do we go to the next level."
The season isn't for another five-plus months, but the excitement for the Bearcats to play at Notre Dame and Indiana and continue to build on the success of the past few seasons is palpable.
"Oh, yeah, there's no doubt," said Fickell, who is 35-14 at UC. "... But then you have to have the maturity enough to be able to say, OK, it's still five, six months away. What do we gotta do to make sure we're in a position that when we get there, we have the opportunities that we need to have. ... But I think there's nothing better to have that little buzz within your community as well."
